Hot Superstar or hot air?

We’ve heard it over and over again. Elijah Burke is YOUR Paragon of Virtue. Elijah Burke is YOUR Guiding Light. Elijah Burke provides an experience unlike any other. Most of the time, the former amateur boxer – who racked up 102 knockouts with a pair of gloves – backed up his very loud words. At Unforgiven, however, that didn’t happen.

After spending his life working toward earning the ECW Championship, CM Punk achieved his dream against John Morrison on ECW on Sci Fi. And when the first challenge came around for him to put his gold on the line, the Straightedge Superstar was ready.

“I’ve always had reason to step in the ring with the Ol’ Punker even if it was just to give him a 4-UP to the side of his straightedged head,” Burke wrote in his Sept. 5 blog entry. “But now there’s more at stake. My future…YOUR future… the future of ECW, which solely rests on the shoulders of YOUR Paragon of Virtue.”

If ECW’s future truly lies with the self-proclaimed Guiding Light of the Land of the Extreme, then perhaps we have reached a dark age. But with the current ECW Champion arguably getting more support from our fans than any other ECW titleholder since Bobby Lashley, the future appears to be bright as ever.

Burke’s proclamation that he is ECW’s future isn’t merely an act of narcissism. In fact, he wasn’t even the first person to make that claim. At a time when Burke was making a push to overpower the ECW Originals, Mr. McMahon stood in the center of the ring and announced the Experience as the future of the brand. With possibly more WWE experience than anybody else in the world, the Chairman’s opinions don’t exactly fall into question very often.

What it boils down to is this: In his blog, Elijah Burke has candidly said he is by far a better competitor than ECW Champion CM Punk. When it came time to prove it, however, your Paragon of Virtue came up short. Was all of it just unsubstantiated preaching? Or was Punk’s Unforgiven victory a fluke? Maybe Burke is simply full of hot air, but with a 103-1 boxing record, Mr. McMahon’s vote of confidence and the damage we have all seen him do to the most influential figures of extreme sports-entertainment, it might not be wise to make any assumptions.

Find out further developments with CM Punk’s championship road and Elijah Burke’s quest to prove he’s the best on ECW on Sci Fi, Tuesdays at 10/9 CT.